“I'm sorry,” said the lady. Then she added, “Would you care to look after so many as three little children, and help around in light housework between whiles?”
“Yes, ma'am.” “Because my sister—she lives in North Berkeley, above here—she's looking far a girl. Have you had lots of experience? Got good references?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Well, I'll give you the address. She lives up in North Berkeley.”
She turned back into the house a moment, and returned, handing Minna a card.
“That's where she lives—careful not to BLOT it, child, the ink's wet yet—you had better see her.”
“Is it far? Could I walk there?”
“My, no; you better take the electric cars, about six blocks above here.”
When Minna arrived in North Berkeley, she had no money left. By a cruel mistake, she had taken a car going in the wrong direction, and though her error was rectified easily enough, it had cost her her last five-cent piece. She was now to try her last hope. Promptly it crumbled away. Like the former, this place had been already filled, and Minna left the door of the house with the certainty that her chance had come to naught, and that now she entered into the last struggle with life—the death struggle—shorn of her last pitiful defence, her last safeguard, her last penny.
As she once more resumed her interminable walk, she realised she was weak, faint; and she knew that it was the weakness of complete exhaustion, and the faintness of approaching starvation. Was this the end coming on? Terror of death aroused her.